by Kittredge Cherry | Sep 11, 2019 (qspirit.net)

Father Mychal Judge, chaplain to New York firefighters and unofficial “gay saint,” died helping others in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. He was the first recorded victim of 9/11.

Father Mychal Judge (1933-2001) responded quickly when extremists flew hijacked planes into the twin towers. He rushed with firefighters into the north tower right after the first plane hit. Refusing to be evacuated, he prayed and gave sacraments as wreckage crashed outside. He saw dozens of bodies hit the plaza outside as people jumped to their deaths. His final prayer, repeated over and over, was “Jesus, please end this right now! God, please end this!” Judge was killed by flying debris.

While he was praying, Judge was struck and killed in a storm of flying steel and concrete that exploded when the south tower collapsed. Judge was designated as Victim 0001 because his was the first body recovered at the scene. More than 2,500 people from many nationalities and walks of life were killed. Thousands more escaped the buildings safely.

After Judge’s death, some of his friends revealed that he considered himself a gay man. He had a homosexual orientation, but by all accounts he remained faithful to his vow of celibacy as a Roman Catholic priest of the Franciscan order.

The charismatic, elderly priest was a long-term member of Dignity, the oldest and largest national lay movement of LGBTQ Catholics and their allies. Judge voiced disagreement with the Vatican’s condemnation of homosexuality, and found ways to welcome Dignity’s AIDS ministry despite a ban by church leaders. He defied a church boycott of the first gay-inclusive St. Patrick’s Day parade in Queens, showing up in his habit and granting news media interviews.

During his lifetime, he often said, “Is there so much love in the world that we can afford to discriminate against any kind of love?”

Movement to canonize Mychal Judge as a saint

Many people, both inside and outside the LGBTQ community, call Judge a saint. In summer 2017 New Ways Ministry began a new effort to get Judge canonized as an official saint in the Roman Catholic church.

“Pope Francis paved the way for Fr. Judge to be considered for canonization this past week when he added a new possible pathway to sainthood: the heroic giving of one’s life for others,” New Ways Ministry Executive Director Francis DeBernardo wrote in a call to start the canonization process.

They are seeking first-hand accounts from people who knew Judge. “Extremely important is any information regarding a possible miracle attributed to Fr. Judge’s intercession,” he added.

There is also a Facebook group devoted to “Support for the Canonization of Mychal F. Judge, OFM.”

Judge has not been canonized yet by his own Roman Catholic Church, but some feel that he has already become a saint by popular acclamation, and the Orthodox-Catholic Church of America did declare officially declare him a saint. Here is a round-up of artwork, films and books about him.

Mychal Judge and 9/11 in religious art

Judge has a rainbow halo in an icon created by queer Lutheran artist and seminarian Katy Miles-Wallace as part of her “Queer Saints” series. It appears at the top of this post. She shows him dressed in a Franciscan robe with the jacket of a fire fighter over one shoulder.  The series presents traditional saints with queer qualities and heroes of the LGBTQ community.

The icons are rooted in queer theology and in Miles-Wallace’s eclectic faith journey that began at a Baptist church in Texas and led to study at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, California. She drew many of them on the altar of a seminary chapel. For more info, see the Q Spirit article “New icons of Queer Saints created by artist Katy Miles-Wallace.”

A dramatic icon of Judge against a backdrop of the burning buildings was painted by Father William Hart McNichols. He shows Judge with Saint Francis of Assisi as the World Trade Center burns behind them. The narrative that accompanies the icon describes Judge as a Passion Bearer who “takes on the oncoming violence rather than returning it… choosing solidarity with the unprotected.” It is one of 32 McNichols icons included in “You Will Be My Witnesses: Saints, Prophets, And Martyrs” with text by John Dear. McNichols is a Roman Catholic priest based in New Mexico. He has a deep connection to New York City because he worked at an AIDS hospice there in the 1980s.

“Mychal Judge, OMV” by Brother Robert Lentz.

Judge carries his fire department hat in an icon by Brother Robert Lentz, is a Franciscan friar known for his innovative and LGBTQ-positive icons. Prints are available through Amazon and Trinity Stores. It is one of 40 icons featured in the book “Christ in the Margins” by Robert Lentz and Edwina Gateley. Lentz is stationed at Holy Name College in Silver Spring, Maryland. Both McNichols and Lentz have faced controversy for painting gay-affirming icons. They are two of the 11 artists whose life and work are featured in “Art That Dares: Gay Jesus, Woman Christ, and More ” by Kittredge Cherry.

“Mychal Judge” by Tobias Haller

A smiling Mychal Judge with a halo was sketched by Tobias Haller, an iconographer, author, composer, and vicar of Saint James Episcopal Church in the Bronx. He is the author of “Reasonable and Holy: Engaging Same-Sexuality.” Haller enjoys expanding the diversity of icons available by creating icons of LGBTQ people and other progressive holy figures as well as traditional saints. He and his spouse were united in a church wedding more than 30 years ago and a civil ceremony after same-sex marriage became legal in New York.

“(Saint) Mychal Judge being Welcomed by the Franciscan Saints” by JR Leveroni

The priest’s connection with others is emphasized in “(Saint) Mychal Judge being Welcomed by the Franciscan Saints” by JR Leveroni. Deliberately painted in the primitive style of folk art, it goes beyond the iconic news photo, sometimes called the “American Pieta,” that shows firefighters carrying Judge’s limp corpse at Ground Zero. In Leveroni’s vision, saints replace the firefighters to carry Mychal onward to heaven. He holds his red firemen’s helmet in his left hand. Leveroni has also painted gay martyrs Matthew Shepard and Saint Sebastian together.

Mychal Judge by Elijah Haswell

Judge is also included in the “People of Pride” project by Elijah Haswell, a queer transgender artist dedicated to accessible, inclusive non-fiction. The series celebrates historic LGBTQ+ Americans with cartoon-like portraits, boxes packed with fun factoids, and a quick quotation. Haswell began the series in 2018 and it was so popular that a “People of Pride” book was released in 2019 with redrawn illustrations and its own Kickstarter campaign.

“Our Mother of Sorrows” by Lewis Williams (TrinityStores.com)

Another contemporary icon providing spiritual comfort after the 9/11 attacks is “Our Mother of Sorrows” by Colorado artist Lewis Williams of the Secular Franciscan Order (SFO). It shows Mary with airplanes instead of angels. She cradles the twin towers of the World Trade Center. “The smoke, stylized and sanctified, bears witness to the ultimate sacrifice of so many on September 11,” says the icon’s narrative.

Williams studied with master iconographer Robert Lentz. A common theme in Williams’ icons is social justice, including LGBTQ-affirming subjects. Our Lady of Sorrows is a title for Mary that focuses on her suffering. Her feast day is Sept. 15.

Books, music and films about Mychal Judge

“Father Mychal Judge: An Authentic American Hero” by Michael Ford is a biography that examines Judge’s life, including his journey to accept himself as a gay man. A revised version was published in 2016 with a new introduction and reflections on events since the 9/11 tragedy.

The film Saint of 9/11 – The True Story of Father Mychal Judge is a complete and uplifting documentary on Judge’s life, including his gay orientation and his support for LGBTQ rights. Its producers include Brendan Fay, who directed “Taking a Chance on God,” a biopic about gay priest John McNeill.

Another gay man who died heroically helping others in the Sept. 11 attack was rugby champion Mark Bingham, who lost his life while fighting hijackers on Flight 93. His story is told at this link.

Mychal Judge is the first recorded victim of 9/11 — and also the first saint profiled in the LGBTQ Saints series by Kittredge Cherry when it began on Sept. 11, 2009. Traditional and alternative saints, people in the Bible, LGBTQ martyrs, authors, theologians, religious leaders, artists, deities and other figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people and our allies are covered.

On the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, may these images and stories inspire people with renewed dedication to peace and service to humanity.

Mychal Judge prayers

Q Spirit’s Litany of Queer Saints includes these lines:

“Saint Mychal Judge, fire-brigade chaplain and first martyr of 9/11, ordained but un-canonised by the church on account of your queer spirit, pray for an end to violence against all people.”

Stories from Judge’s life are presented in the book, “Mychal’s Prayer: Praying with Father Mychal Judge” by Salvatore Sapienza, a former monk who worked with Judge to build St. Francis AIDS Ministry in New York City. The book mixes prayers with stories from the chaplain’s life. It begins with Judge’s own words, a text that has come to be known simply as “Mychal’s Prayer”:

Lord, take me where You want me to go;
Let me meet who You want me to meet;
Tell me what You want me to say;
And keep me out of your way.

For an excerpt from the book, see the previous post 10 years later: Mychal Judge, gay saint of 9/11. Sapienza is also the author of Seventy Times Seven: A Novel, a novel about a young Catholic brother torn between his sexuality and his spirituality as an out and proud gay man.

Mychal’s prayer is the chorus of a song about Judge by Paddy Ryan, a multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter whose songs blend rock, country, folk and Celtic sources. It is the first song on his debut album “The Man in the Box.” The lyrics include this verse:

Mychal would never turn people away.
He was a priest for the homeless, lesbian and gay.
Through the eye of the needle he sure could have walked.
He would help those the church never supports.

Links related to Mychal Judge

Saint Mychal Judge Blog

Could Father Mychal Judge Be the First Gay Saint? Inside the fractious campaign to canonize the 9/11 icon (Slate.com, Sept. 11, 2017)

“Fr. Mychal Judge” at the Legacy Project

The Stories of 9/11’s LGBTQ Heroes (Advocate.com)

____
Top image credit:
“Queer Saints: Father Mychal Judge” by Katy Miles-Wallace

___
This post is part of the LGBTQ Saints series by Kittredge Cherry. Traditional and alternative saints, people in the Bible, LGBT and queer martyrs, authors, theologians, religious leaders, artists, deities and other figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people and our allies are covered.

An earlier version of this article launched the LGBTQ Saints series on Sept. 11, 2009. It was first published on Q Spirit in July 2016 and was most recently updated on Sept. 2, 2020.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
Qspirit.net presents the Jesus in Love Blog on LGBTQ spirituality.

Kittredge Cherry

Founder at Q SpiritKittredge Cherry is a lesbian Christian author who writes regularly about LGBTQ spirituality.She holds degrees in religion, journalism and art history.She was ordained by Metropolitan Community Churches and served as its national ecumenical officer, advocating for LGBTQ rights at the National Council of Churches and World Council of Churches.

Origin Eleven strangers of different gender identities and sexualities spend a week together in a house… They are there to discover what divides them and what unites them, but what they tell each other about who they are, and when they tell it, is up to them. Genderquake is an eye-opening contemporary debate on gender identity, gender fluidity and trans rights in a familiar reality format. In Part 1 we meet the housemates, and all but one of them reveal their true gender and sexuality… Over the course of the following days romances begin to develop within the group and personalities clash… #Genderquake#LGBT Content licensed from All3Media. For any enquiries, please contact us at info@passiondistribution.com

Playing out the nightmare scenario.

By David Brooks

Opinion Columnist

• Sept. 3, 2020 (NYTimes.colm)

On the evening of Nov. 3, Americans settle nervously in front of their screens to await elections results. In the early hours Donald Trump seems to be having an excellent night. Counting the votes cast at polling places, Trump is winning Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.

Those states don’t even begin processing mail-in ballots until Election Day, yet Trump quickly declares victory. So do many other Republican candidates. The media complains that it’s premature, but Trumpworld is ecstatic.

Democrats know that as many as 40 percent of the ballots are mail-in and still being counted, and those votes are likely to be overwhelmingly for Joe Biden, but they can’t control the emotions of that night. It’s a gut punch.

As the mail-in ballots are tallied, the Trump leads erode. But the situation is genuinely unclear. Trump is on the warpath, raging about fraud.

Within weeks there are lawsuits and challenges everywhere. It’s like Florida in 2000, but the chaos is happening in many states at once. Ballots are getting tossed because of problems with signatures, or not getting tossed, amid national frenzy.

Trump says he won’t let Democrats steal the election and declares himself re-elected. It’s an outrage, but as when he used the White House for a campaign prop during his convention, who’s going to stop him?

A certain kind of Republican takes to the streets to enforce Trump’s version of events. According to research done by Larry Bartels of Vanderbilt, 50 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents believe “the traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it.” Nearly as many believe, “A time will come when patriotic Americans have to take the law into their own hands.”

The left is in the streets, too. On the fringe of the left there are those who want to overthrow the racist, cisgendered, patriarchal neoliberal oligarchy. This is their chance at mayhem, too, and they seize it with sometimes violent passion.

But a new force looms into view. For the whole Trump era a certain sort of conservative has been cowering from the Trump onslaught. Certain sorts of moderates and liberals have also been keeping their heads down, so they won’t get bitten off by the woke mobs. But now the very existence of the Republic is at stake.

It turns out, amid the existential crisis, there really is a group of sober people who are militant about America, who can see reality unblinkered by the lens of partisanship, and who are finally compelled to organize.

They understand that, like so many American tragedies, this is largely about race. It’s about the transition from a certain kind of white-dominated America to a diverse America — and the people who will do anything to stop it.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once argued that sin is buried so deep in the human soul that sweet words are insufficient to get people to give up their unjust power. “Instead of assured progress in wisdom and decency,” he wrote, “man faces the ever-present possibility of a swift relapse not merely to animalism, but into such calculated cruelty as no other animal can practice.”

But the realist militants who walk in King’s shadow also know that it is the U.S. Constitution that keeps us from slipping into chaos, along with all the norms and values built around it over the centuries. They know, too, that this crisis is not just about race, but also the greatness of American institutions, so scorned and derided of late, so neglected and abused.

If Trump claims a victory that is not rightly his, a few marches in the streets will not be an adequate response. There may have to be a sustained campaign of civic action, as in Hong Kong and Belarus, to rally the majority that wants to preserve democracy, that isolates those who would undo it.

Two themes would have to feature in such civic action. The first is ardent patriotism. The country survives such a crisis only if most people’s love of nation overwhelms the partisan fury that will threaten to envelop us.

The second is the preservation of constitutional order. Through epic acts of self-discipline, the nonviolent civil rights marchers in the 1960s forced their foes to reveal that if there were to be any violence and anarchy, it would come from the foes. That’s how the movement captured the moral high ground and won the mind of the nation.

The process of mobilizing for an accurate election outcome, before it is too late, would be a struggle to preserve the order of our civic structure against the myriad foes who talk blithely about tearing down systems, disorder and disruption. It may be how we rediscover our nation again.

It’s time to start thinking about what you would do.

(Contributed by Gwyllm Llwydd.)

I know funny, and the state of the country today is no laughing matter.

SEPTEMBER 3, 2020

Jim Carrey Actor and comedian

I’ve spent much of my career trying to reach audiences through humor. It’s always come from a loving place, a joyful place—wanting to free people from concern. I know that hearing a performer give voice to the things you’re thinking and feeling can be an enormous relief and that laughing hysterically at a willing fool is almost always good medicine. But relying on jokes can sometimes cancel out the seriousness of what you’re trying to say. At this moment, the best anyone can offer is gallows humor. The truth is, we should all be seriously concerned.

The United States faces catastrophe. That’s a word from my world—drama. In ancient Greek, katastrophḗ means “overturn,” or “a sudden turn.” This is what we have suffered. Untold American lives have been ruined by the presidency of Donald Trump. The rule of law is imperiled, our unity has been shattered, the service sector has been obliterated, and major cities are suffering. Black Americans, who have endured half a millennium of wickedness and brutality, now face more injustice and death.

Last week, amid all this suffering, Trump and his acolytes held their Totally Illegal COVID-19 Super-Spreader Spectacular at the White House, in flagrant violation of the Hatch Act. It got me thinking about the great director Francis Ford Coppola, who masterfully wove together evil deeds and pious words in classic films. Watching Trump accept the nomination of the Republican Party in the people’s house during a pandemic he exacerbated was like watching Michael Corleone swear a sacred oath while his underlings settled scores across the city.

Those in the audience on the South Lawn of the White House might have believed their lives were their own to lose, but after their big night, they now risk infecting other Americans. Trump and the GOP have decided not to heed science, leaving us helpless during a plague. But as far as I know, plagues don’t care about reelection campaigns. They don’t wither in the face of the Secret Service or succumb to the intimidation of goon squads. And they don’t respect the families of gluttonous aspiring monarchs.

How did a bourgeois New York con artist convince so many people he was on their side? Was it the trucker’s hat? I’m wearing sandals right now, but that doesn’t make me Gandhi. Was it the fawning coverage on cable news? I know funny; Fox News is a joke that’s not funny, and it’s being told at the expense of our democracy. Was it his performances on the WWF or The Apprentice? I was amused to see Trump play the self-made billionaire in Home Alone 2, but the presidency is not performance art. People’s lives depend on him. Our future is at stake.

Where did the modern Republican Party’s cruelty come from? Too many Americans support Trump because he appeals to their basest and most primitive urges, through his racism, his misogyny, his mockery of the disabled, and his encouragement of violence during his campaign. If you consider yourself a patriot, know full well that the direction the Republican Party has taken threatens to obliterate America’s once hopeful experiment in liberty.

Trump’s party has no platform other than the promise of more wealth for the few and “law and order” for the dispossessed. His presidency has seen markets rise, and corporations prosper, even as ordinary Americans suffer and go without, in this economy of larceny and lies. This is true even for his most devoted supporters, who are now fully aware that he is trying to sabotage our election. I only hope the red hats are edible.

America has always been redeemed by those who challenge it to do better. Today, some true patriots refuse to stand for an anthem that has never stood for all Americans, challenging the country to live up to its ideals. If Americans can look out for one another, we can gain back our self-respect, and the respect of our allies around the world. When our anthem stands for love, tolerance, courage, and everything our better angels value, then we can all stand together.

When I was a little boy in Canada, I watched old Superman reruns, and fell in love with the United States. I was blessed to be able to come here, and to realize my wildest dreams. In 2004, I proudly became a citizen. But lately, my adopted home has become almost unrecognizable. Whatever happened to “Truth, Justice, and the American Way”? That line was written when the Nazis were ravaging Europe and America was the hero of the world. It’s more than a line in a TV show; it’s a set of ideals we should always aspire to uphold.

In November, we must vote in historic numbers, gathering all the “snowflakes” until there’s a blizzard on Capitol Hill that no corrupt politician can survive. We must vote for decency, humanity, and a way of life that once again captures the imagination of kids all over the world—kids like me.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

JIM CARREY is the author of Memoirs and Misinformation: A Novel.

TYT’s The Conversation Yale University professor Jason Stanley speaks with Michael Shure on The Conversation about the Trump administrations fascist politics. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/bo…https://twitter.com/jasonintrator MORE TYT: https://tyt.com/trial Hosts: Michael Shure, Cast: Michael Shure, *** The Largest Online News Show in the World. Hosted by Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian. LIVE STREAMING weekdays 6-8pm ET. http://tyt.com/live Subscribe to The Young Turks on YouTube: http://youtube.com/subscription_cente… TYT on Facebook: http://facebook.com/theyoungturks TYT on Twitter: http://twitter.com/theyoungturks TYT on Instagram: http://instagram.com/theyoungturks Merch: http://www.shoptyt.com Donate to TYT https://patreon.com/tytnetworkhttp://tyt.com/donate Download audio and video of the full two-hour show on-demand + the members-only postgame show by becoming a member at http://tyt.com/join/. Your membership supports the day to day operations and is vital for our continued success and growth. Gift membership: http://tyt.com/gift Producer, Senior Producer and Executive Producer membership: http://go.tyt.com/producer Young Turk (n), 1. Young progressive or insurgent member of an institution, movement, or political party. 2. A young person who rebels against authority or societal expectations. (American Heritage Dictionary) #TYT#TheYoungTurks#TheConversation

Lisa A. Flowers Updated October 13, 2018 (ranker.com)

Dying before you’ve had a chance to be absolved of your sins is a huge predicament to find yourself in but, once you’re dead, there’s no going back (as far as most people are concerned, anyway). How, then, does a spirit go about acquiring a get-out-of-hell-free card? In 18th- and 19th-century Scotland and Wales, the doorway to deliverance came by way of Catholic “sin-eaters.” The term is as literal as it is figurative: sin-eaters were tasked with actually eating a meal off a corpse’s chest. In doing so, they symbolically consumed the sins of the deceased – thereby taking them on themselves. However, rather than being seen as a selfless and heroic act, eating someone’s sins was looked upon with horror, and the sin-eater was basically ostracized (at least until they were needed again) for being a rancid, crime-accumulating plague.

To find out how to become a sin-eater (and/or to explore one of history’s most fascinating and bizarre occupations), read on.

The Church Thought Of Sin-Eaters As Being “Competition” – And Sometimes Sought To Eliminate Them Altogether

Death, as everyone knows, is a profitable industry that’s as reliably eternal as… well, death itself. So is the Church, of course, but back in the day, the latter was really serious about eliminating industry competition. As OMGFacts explains it: 

“The Roman Catholic Church viewed Sin Eaters as competition — an obstacle to its efforts to establish a monopoly on the sin-absolving industry. That meant Sin Eaters had to avoid church authorities at all costs or face execution.”

It didn’t stop there, either – authorities apparently employed fascist-like techniques for ensuring 100% domination in the form of doling out “harsh punishments” to families who sought the services of Sin Eaters. (Fortunately, however, these repercussions were hard to enforce, as sin-eating ceremonies were often performed clandestinely/under the radar.)

Every Village Had Its Own Designated Sin-Eater

Even though sin-eaters were looked upon with abject horror, they still provided a valuable service, and people knew it. That’s why, as Wikisource explains it, “each village had its [own] official sin-eater to whom notice was given as soon as a death occurred. He at once went to the house, and there, a stool being brought, he sat down in front of the door.”

All of this had to be done right under the nose of the execution-happy Church, of course, so being “on call” also meant potentially risking one’s own hide for some quick cash.

Typical Meals Included “Dead Cakes” And “Funeral Biscuits”

In addition to alcohol (typically served in the form of wine or brown ale), the sin-eater was required to consume “Funeral Biscuits” or “Death Cakes,” which were basically just exalted terms for the crusts of bread. As Wikisource describes it,:

“The sin-eater [was] taken into the death-chamber, and a piece of bread, and possibly cheese, [was] placed on the breast of the corpse by a relative, usually a woman. It was afterwards handed to the sin-eater, who ate it in the presence of the dead. He was then handed his fee, and at once hustled and thrust out of the house amid execrations, and a shower of sticks, cinders, or whatever other missiles were handy.”

At other times, the woman of the house would pour out a glass of wine for the sin-eater and “hand it to him across the coffin with a ‘Funeral Biscuit.'” The bottom line: some sin-eaters were treated better than others, and some (albeit very few) even managed to get themselves a full meal. But all ended their work days newly burdened with the crimes of the dead.

“Eating” Someone’s Sins Meant That Their Sins Were Transferred To You

Forget using a piece of toast to mop up some egg: using a sin-eater to mop up someone’s sins was infinitely more effective. As Atlas Obscura puts it:

“The family who hired the sin-eater believed that the bread literally soaked up their loved one’s sins; once it had been eaten, all the misdeeds were passed on to the hired hand. The sin-eater’s own soul was heavy with the ill deeds of countless men and women from his village or town… Usually, the only people who would dare risk their immortal souls during such a religious era were the very poor… To those who believed in the powers of this ritual, sin-eaters were doing a necessary but distasteful job, literally becoming a bit more evil as they performed their task.”

So much for the verse, “It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

Sin-Eaters Were Looked Down Upon And Poorly Compensated

The sin-eater was basically the psychic toilet of the town: his duty was to take on and contain the filthy sins of others. However, unlike today’s sanitation workers, who tend to make pretty decent wages, sin-eaters received almost nothing for their trouble. As OMG Facts puts it:

“The Sin-Eater served a dual purpose: he saved the departed from hell, but also prevented them from wandering the Earth as ghosts. In other words, he performed a service for both the living and the dead, which is a pretty big client base. Considering that, it’s even more outrageous that he got paid squat to do it: about half a shilling per job, which is the equivalent of a couple dollars by today’s standards.”

At best, in other words, the sin-eater got a free meal out of the whole thing. And maybe a free night of drunkenness, too, which he probably sorely needed, considering the increasingly heavy psychological burden he was carrying.

The Last (Known) Sin-Eater Died In 1906

The last known official sin-eater, Richard Munslow of Shropshire, died (and was buried in semi-disgrace) in 1906, which still seems like a fairly contemporary era by sin-eating standards. However, Munslow’s legacy, along with the merit of being a sin-eater in general, has since been more or less redeemed. In 2010, the BBC reported that Shropshire had raised £1,000 (about $1,280.00) to restore the grave of Munslow. A service was performed over the burial spot, though the Reverend Norman Morris, who officiated, also pointed out that he had “no desire to reinstate the ritual that went with it.”

Sin-Eating Was Also Said To Be A Good Way To Prevent Hauntings

Sin-eating didn’t just clear a soul for takeoff into heaven: it also prevented the soul from becoming an eternally earthbound ghost. As Week in Weird puts it:

“It was said that with the deceased’s sins absorbed by the sin-eater, they had no reason to rise from the grave and wander the Earth in discontent.  Forgiven, and resting peacefully, they could remain in the grave to the ease of all those left behind.”

Remain in the grave ’til Judgment Day or ascend outright: their choice. But since the sin-eater’s much-feared and “unransomable soul” was left to “wander in the wilderness” in its free time, it essentially ended up performing the function of a wayward ghost, anyway.

Martin Sheen and Ben Kingsley play Kenneth Walker and Gandhi in the 1982 movie Gandhi.

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